EXCLUSIVE: Netflix has acquired Devil’s Rope, an original spec by Melanie Toast, to be produced by Toby Jaffe.
Plot details are under wraps, though sources described the project as a female-led thriller set in rural Texas. Toast and Jaffe reunite here following their work together on the upcoming Cliffhanger reboot helmed by Carry-On‘s Jaume Collet-Serra.
Toast’s Cliffhanger is a reimagining of the 1993 action classic starring Sylvester Stallone. Pierce Brosnan stars as seasoned mountaineer Ray Cooper, who operates a luxury chalet in the Dolomites with daughter Sydney. During a weekend trip with a billionaire’s son, the pair are targeted by a gang of kidnappers. Ray’s other daughter Naomi (Lily James), still haunted by a past climbing accident, witnesses the attack and escapes, then going about working to save her family.
Currently, Toast is writing on Seismic, based on the spec by Mortal Kombat‘s Greg Russo, with 21 Laps aboard to produce for Netflix. The thriller follows a single mother who fights to reunite with her missing son amid chaos after the Earth’s surface is decimated by a mysterious attack. Toast came to work with Netflix and 21 Laps after scripting their film The Poet, based on the true crime article by Corey Mead that was published by Greg Nichols and Matthew Pearl’s digital magazine and media company, Truly*Adventurous.
Toast sold her pitch competitively to adapt the short story Rabbit Rabbit Rabbit with James Wan’s Atomic Monster and 3 Arts Entertainment producing. She also sold spec Shut In to New Line at auction for Jason Bateman to direct and Nicole Kidman to star. She’s repped by 3 Arts, UTA, and Jackoway Austen Tyerman.
Past projects for Jaffe include 20th/Hulu’s Joey King starrer The Princess, Bloodshot, Hunter Killer, Prom Night, and the Syfy series Happy!, to name just a few.
